faulty vision

England and other errata

Oh. That's right. We're back from England. (hi.)

T-minus 5.

The airline, in its infinite wisdom, has seen fit to assign us seats.

Individual ones that we can sit in. Apart from each other. All the way from SFO to Manchester.

I wish them luck with that. Actually, I wish the entire airplane luck with that. I called the airline to find out if [...]

that can’t be right.

Our plane to England leaves at 7:20 AM out of SFO on Monday, which means we’ll have to be out of the house by 5:00 AM at the latest. What with toddler, luggage, long-term parking, checking in, not to mention changing diapers, changing clothes, feeding toddler, suppressing urge to muzzle toddler (none of this listed [...]

A life of sin

On Tuesday, I woke up a married woman. I went to bed a single one. Some days are just like that.

letters from history

“You should journal that,” my husband told me, the last time I passed on something ridiculous and funny that our son had done.

“Meh,” I said, because I am lazy.

“Or you should just email him, so he can read it later, like in that commercial,” he said. “He has an email.” (Fact: we might [...]

role models

I have insomnia, so I am sitting on the sofa, surfing the internet.

My husband has a video game, so he is standing in the middle of the living room, shooting mutants and listening to Bing Crosby. (Fallout: New Vegas, for those of you who are wondering.)

It is now 1:49. AM.

It occurs to [...]

The benefit of experience

If I had ever owned a cat, I would have recognized what the hacking and coughing sounds meant. As it was, some hindbrain instinct warned me just in time, and jerked me out of sleep right on cue to miss a spout of projectile vomit directed my way.

That was at 4 AM.

By 4:30 [...]

little truths

"Did I tell you what he said to me today?" the Guy asked. "No," I said. "We were at Trader Joe's, and he wanted to buy some snacks. I told him no snacks, because I was fat enough already. And he said, 'Yeah, you're too fat.'" I laughed. (Well, who wouldn't?) Hobbes was busily pushing trains around the living room floor, and didn't look up. "Hobbes," I said. "Is Mommy too fat?" Dangerous territory, but I had to ask. "No," he said. So now I know: my kid is smarter than average. Go figure.

the great outdoors

“I’m getting sick,” the Guy said, and sniffled.

“Again?”

“I think I’m getting a cold.”

“Oh,” I said.

Hobbes, sitting on the Guy’s lap, craned his head to stare up at his father.

“You’re old,” he said.

***

We went camping.

It was The Guy’s idea, which is ironic enough. Almost seven years [...]

Bay Area Maker Faire 2011

It was a hectic weekend.

I don’t know what it is about our planning that fills our regular weekends to bursting with activities, but leaves our long weekends relatively desolate. We’re working on adjusting that pattern. Downtime is all well and good, but Hobbes has a limit to the amount of parental quality time he [...]

the blues

I've been rereading Anne Lamott's wonderful book, Operating Instructions for the last week or so. I'd forgotten how beautifully it's written, not to mention how much it makes me laugh. When I initially read it, Hobbes wasn't even a glimmer in the eye; nowadays I read it with an eye angled backwards, to the same first year experiences I had with a new baby at the age of 35. The laughter has an extra edge of rue to it, a kind of, "I hear ya, sister," that it didn't have when I first read it.

out of the mouths of babes

The Guy was grousing about the Amazon app store. “It’s not downloading,” he grumbled.

“Chuzzle,” Hobbes said. This was the free game that the Guy was attempting to download to his tablet. Hobbes was addicted to the word. “Chuzzle Chuzzle Chuzzle Chuzzle.” In his mouth, it came out, ‘Chuzzow.’

“This is a terrible user experie– [...]

More monkey

After a while, the Putomayo Kids CD starts turning into white noise. Anything does, when you're forced to listen to it again. And again. And again. And again. We were halfway to the daycare when I realized that the disc had moved onto tracks that Hobbes doesn't particularly favor. "Do you want more monkeys?" I asked him.

A brief musical interlude

Hobbes inherited his love of music from my mother, which is where I learned it. He voices loud approval from the backseat at my radio choices, calling out demands for this song or that song based on whatever mood he happens to be in. Since the classical music station in the Bay Area folded, or lost its frequency, or broke its transmitter, or generally speaking disappeared one night from my radio's list of options -- not that it was much of a classical music station anyway, since it often played muzak with as much deliberation as it did Mozart -- his listening options in the car are mostly limited to Alice on 97.3 and such CDs as have made it to my car. He doesn't appear to mind. Songs involving animals are a hit. So are songs in major keys with brisk, driving tempos. Drums are popular. So are sopranos. He disapproves of stringed instruments (excepting the ukelele and banjo) but likes marimbas purely on principle.

Decompression

I was lying in the dark the other night, wondering if Hobbes had finally gone to sleep, when I felt a little hand groping for my face. Then it patted my cheek. "You're very clever," he said. "Thank you," I said.

Quality time

Reading Thomas the train is serious work.

eyeball is not a 4-letter word.

I dreamt last night that I had conjunctivitis of the left eye (pink eye, for those of you not plugged into my daily dose of medspeak) and spent a cranky dream-day trying to get out of one engagement or another so I could get treatment. "Oh, that looks bad," all my dream people said sympathetically, peering at my eye. In my dream, I would pry my eyelid open with my fingers so they could see that my iris had a second iris riding shotgun behind it, a slippery, brown-and-black striped disc that kept sliding around the surface of my eye and occasionally popping out to flash people, for all the world like creepy Uncle Mark the Drunk who shows up to family events wearing a brown overcoat and no socks.

A photo post

I mentioned we visited Hakone Gardens again?

Right.

Oh. Hi again.

Every so often I get reminded that I have a blog, and I end up coming back just to see what that was all about.

Hi, blog.

There was a time when I was posting almost every day, which is hard to imagine now but seemed perfectly rational back in the day. “The Day” encompasses [...]

out of the mouths of babes

“Stop that,” the Guy said.

“What you doing?” Hobbes demanded.

“I’m spanking Daddy, son.”

“Haha,” said the 2-year old. “I’m too old for that.”

Oakland Zoo

Saturday night, I posted the following on Facebook.

“Plan for tomorrow: zoo. Question is, which one? Oakland or SF? Never been to the former; how is it for 2 year olds and overwrought parents?”

A kindly friend of The Guy’s replied: San Francisco zoo is larger, but Oakland has lots to do for kids. Heads [...]

Pima goes poop.

Unusually enough, I have some free time today and limited resources to do any of the many other things that are usually clamoring for my attention — in other words, I’m stuck on the train with about 20% battery on my laptop and no internet access — so I have a chance to do one [...]

The Ladies’ Man

Hobbes got a fairly authentic-seeming set of Black & Decker toy power tools for Christmas, which has been affording him some amusement in the past week or so. The drill lights up and makes a convincing grating sound when pressed against hard materials; the electric screwdriver bit sinks in when pushed, and shares [...]

Introducing 2011

Our first day of the new year went more smoothly than might be expected with a rainy day, cold weather, and an active 2-year old. We spent the morning at the Children’s Discovery Museum in San Jose, where Hobbes got thoroughly wet, excited, and stimulated. This was followed by a trip to the Old Spaghetti [...]

Out of the mouth of babes

Hobbes and the Guy were in the living room, trying to craft a plastic tubing base for a xylophone toy that I’d played with when I was a kid. Mom brought it down from Seattle when she came to visit. I was in the kitchen, trying to read a book. It had been so long, [...]

Back.

…for a given value of it, anyway.

The family is gone, more or less — my mother flew back to Seattle yesterday, after a 5 day stay that felt a lot shorter than it actually was, and Sako and John are off doing whatever it is that climbers do when they’ve got free time. Climb [...]

What I did at work this past week

Oh, c’mon. Like you were more productive.

Opinion

“Look, Hobbes. It’s a firetruck. Somebody needs help.”

“OH! Needs HEWP. Too BAD.”

Which is true enough, but sounds unnecessarily sarcastic from a 2-year old.

And then there was the monkey.

At some point I will add commentary.

At some point not during Nano. Probably.

Maybe.

(I hope.)

Halloween, first jack-o-lantern.

(Mommy helped with the bits that involved sharp cutting implements.)